The Swedish Christmas Dress

Description

I paid almost no money for this soft, wonderful chequered fabric, so I’m happy to say that I’ve got myself a brand new Christmas dress almost for free.

My childhood fascination with the beloved Swedish author Astrid Lindgren has flourished again. Her stories, almost always set in Sweden a long time ago, inspires me very much at the moment. This dress in particular, was inspired by the books about the six Bullerby children, and especially the movies by Lasse Hallstrm. The adventures of the six Bullerby Children are taking place in a small, Swedish village in the 1920’s – a great source of inspiration!

So this is simply an a-line dress where I topstitched pleats all over the bust to create the volume in the skirt. This took its time since I always had to make sure the squares were fitted together properly.

I ran out of fabric until it was time for the neckline, so I couldn’t make a proper facing like I intended. Therefor, I had to settle with red bias tape, which was the first time for me. Because of the thickness of all the pleats and the collar, it wasn’t idealistic, but what to do. I think it worked out okay anyway.

Merry Christmas!

Material Notes

Chequered fabric, white cotton for the collar, biastape for the neckline and golden buttons.

Difficulty

Advanced

Categories

I love this dress, it looks so cute, traditional, warm, girly and well made! I also read Bullerby children as a little (I was a bit sad that I couldn’t live in a place and time like that.. ) and your dress really is like from that world!

1 Reply

Thank you! Actually I made the pleats before I cut out the shape. Maybe it’s not the easiest way to do it, but it just felt so overwhelming starting to calculate the size of the pleats an then transfer the measurements to the pattern since the squares are irregular.

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